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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Public restrooms in Bratislava

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. It's interesting to see WP:NOT and WP:Notability playing directly at odds against each other on this AfD. From what I observed in the arguments below, a few points may be drawn:

  • Most agree that the topic has adequate reliable source coverage to be notable;
  • Many concede that WP:NOT has the power to override WP:N if applicable;
  • Many argued that WP:NOT excludes this topic from Wikipedia, however this position did not gain majority consensus.

Hence I'm closing this AfD as no consensus. A minor point for those who invoked ideas along the lines of WP:IAR and WP:COMMONSENSE: no, common sense does not apply here. We're all artificially potty-trained. Deryck C. 17:43, 14 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Public restrooms in Bratislava

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Public restrooms in Bratislava (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Not nearly a notable article. Strangely sourced, but entirely unencyclopedic. And Wikipedia is not a travel guide. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 18:14, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll clarify a bit more per Unscintillating's comment. The article is poorly sourced, and I don't think it means WP:GNG. Of the three sources listed, none are used to back up the items on the list. If one considers it a list article, it doesn't meet WP:SAL, in that none of the items in the list are notable in their own right.. largely because they're bathrooms. But it's really just a wholly unsuitable topic for Wikipedia. We don't have articles on public restrooms in various locations because we're not a travel guide. The initial commit on the article had this edit comment: "For the benefit of the thousands of visitors to Braitslava for the 2011 IIHF World Championships and for the enlightment of future generations :)". It was created as a guide for people and doesn't belong in mainspace. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 00:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Note that several reliable sources have been added to the article as of this post. The article is no longer "strangely sourced", as stated in the nomination, and it is no longer "poorly sourced" as stated by the nominator in their subsequent comment below the nomination. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:57, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment  After skimming this article, I don't see why the nominator wants this article listed at AfD; fact is, the nomination does not make a complete argument for deletion, nor does the word "delete" in bold using an argument listed at WP:ATA constitute an adequate !vote.  So the best thing would be to get this speedy kept WP:SK#1 with WP:NPASR within 24 hours of nomination, so that the nominator can decide if he/she is willing to do some additional work to prepare the rest of the community for a deletion discussion.  Given that parts of the lede appear to be WP:OR, there could be content problems, but to separate this possibility from good material it would help to show that the Hungarian sources are not adequate.  Beyond that, it helps if an AfD nomination explains why the content is so objectionable that it cannot be merged.  Unscintillating (talk) 23:34, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: There, I've added to my nomination. But really, you mentioned merging - what would you possibly merge this into? Public restrooms in Slovakia? We don't have articles on public restrooms. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 00:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Technically "unencyclopedic content" is listed at WP:ATA...but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to catch your drift, but the drift seems to be censorship, are sewage treatment plants also topics that we avoid?  Where I have lived, even visits to Mexico, the idea of a public bathroom with a bathroom attendant to take payments is totally unheard of.  To me I find this view into the infrastructure of a city in a former Soviet satellite to be fresh and practical.  As for merge, there is Bratislava.  But if most of the article is WP:OR, we have a content problem.  Likewise if most of the content is unsourced.  That still leaves those pictures, there is a lot of material here to explain why it should be deleted, when right now we have an interesting functional article.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:45, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Brutalhovno, who created the article, also took a majority of the pictures. But here, let me ask you: since you think public restrooms should be included in the Bratislava article, why don't we have a "Public facilities" section in all articles about major cities? Some trivia factoid about attendants is trivia and doesn't justify an entire article. The entire article is OR, i.e. content generated by Brutalhovno based on his own research, which is where all the pictures came from as well. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 03:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • You said, "The entire article is OR, i.e. content generated by Brutalhovno based on his own research".  What evidence do you have to support that statement?  Also, I did not say that "public facilities should be included in the Brataslava article", nor do I know that we discuss sewers in city articles, but I found without an real effort London sewerage system, 1929 Ottawa sewer explosion and Louisville sewer explosions.  Unscintillating (talk) 04:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC)'[reply]
            • This article is not even remotely the same as the sewerage systems ones. This is a list of exact locations of public toilets and the times they are open. As to evidence to support the OR thing: until I nominated the article for AFD, Brutal was the only editor on the page. He took nearly all the pictures himself. He cites no sources for any of the locations or times that the public restrooms are open. Based on this, it seems likely that he went around Bratislava, noted where the public toilets are, and took pictures of them - the very definition of OR.
And even if he did find reliable sources for them, it still shouldn't be included. Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion in Wikipedia. A list of the public restrooms in Bratislava, no matter what shape or form it's in, is not worthy of inclusion here. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 06:14, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Slovakia-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:05, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

1) I firmly believe that the subject matter merits its own wikipedia article, because public toilets are a striking feature of the wider city center of the capital of Slovakia and like other public structures in the city they should be covered on Wikipedia in some shape or form. I also disagree with the logic, that the absence of a "Public restrooms in New York" article merits deleting this article. Not only there would not be millions of articles on Wikipedia if everyone thought so, it is also completely reversible (that means since there is this article, it could be implied that a "Public restrooms in New York" article should be created).

2) The article is not a stub, a lot of work was put into it mostly by a single person. It is very discouraging for an editor seeing his work destroyed, especially when it was OK to let him publicly work on the article for almost a year. Editors from obscure countries should be nurtured, even the ones like me.

3) The argument for deletion is still poorly constructed (please take no offense). In a nutshell: WP:NOTTRAVEL is an easily surmountable problem, "unencycopedic" is too vague and I have a huge problem assigning it to public structures in capital cities of the world and "strangly sourced" is both an opinion and an easily fixable issue. Also, I do not consider uploading your own images as WP:OR, I always thought of it as a way of improving Wikipedia. As for WP:N, that is the only real issue. For me, this is part of the basic city infrastructure and it is notable enough.Brutalhovno (talk) 13:19, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep separately. The content of our article is verifiable by multiple reliable sources, even the first page of the G-search result for verejné záchody v bratislave (Public restrooms in Bratislava) provides good sources about this topic [1], [2], [3], [4]. From what I can read in Slovak, I can confirm that the content of our article is not OR and corresponds well with the sources listed in the article or here. Of course, the article needs more inline citations, but the topic is in my opinion notable. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 18:01, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well I guess that if a topic is being discussed widely in the national media in a long time span, then it probably is notable. We maintain hundreds of articles on video game characters ... do we really want to delete verifiable, interesting and useful information about the life in the public places of a big European city? I'm sorry but I disagree. There is sufficient coverage to compile a good article about this issue. --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 09:23, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Per significant coverage in reliable sources:
  • "Public Toilets Should be Improved". Petit Press. August 31, 2006. Retrieved January 30, 2012. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  • "Cloaca". Petit Press. July 11, 2008. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
  • Krafka, Jaro (July 5, 2011). "Public toilets are pretty expensive, a visit to the city comes to € 22". Markiza TV. Retrieved January 30, 2012. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  • "Public toilets in the city are still dwindling, government knows that a shortage". Bratislava newspaper. August 31, 2006. Retrieved January 30, 2012. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  • "The deficit in public toilets: the sound Bratislava nas.ali and resolve it your way!". Ringier Axel Springer. August 31, 2006. Retrieved January 30, 2012. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  • "Municipality to build new public toilets". City of Bratislava. July 4, 2008. Retrieved January 30, 2012. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
  • "Poverty and Public Toilets Gloss". Bratislava Courier. 2008. Retrieved January 30, 2012. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help) [PDF from Old Town Courier Volume II. No. 7 (2008).]
—Northamerica1000(talk) 00:56, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Again, per WP:V: "While verifiability is needed for inclusion, it does not guarantee inclusion." Just because you can source something doesn't mean that it necessarily gets in. Those sources could be used for a section called Public utilities on the Bratislava article because they're about the sewage system, but they don't validate having an article that specifically lists the location of each public toilet in Bratislava. — HelloAnnyong (say whaaat?!) 02:58, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sewage system?  I'm just sitting here looking at the titles of the articles, but how do you get "sewage system" out of an article titled, "Public toilets are pretty expensive, a visit to the city comes to € 22"?  That looks to me like an article focusing on public policy for "public restrooms in Bratislava".  Now that the WP:GNG issue it has been shown that reliable sources exist, there is still the WP:OR and WP:NOTTRAVEL issues to get past.  One of the WP:NOTTRAVEL concerns is to avoid pricing, and I've already removed the pricing from the article.  The line you have quoted from WP:V has to do with prominence and WP:DUE, not WP:N notability.  Yes, a list with addresses is a WP:NOTTRAVEL issue, but since not all of the locations have pictures, it seems just a matter of a few edits to remove locations that lack sufficient prominence for inclusion.  Unscintillating (talk) 04:41, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Just a minor clarification: The translation of the title "Public toilets are pretty expensive, a visit to the city comes to € 22" is incorrect and misleading. The report by TV Markíza says that one visit of a public toilet costs the city (not the visitor) 22 € (Verejné WC sú poriadne drahé, jedna návšteva vyjde mesto aj na 22 €). --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 09:23, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Objection: As WP:N says: "A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below, and is not excluded under What Wikipedia is not." Therefore, to claim 'keep' it is not enough to provide sources (which can only demonstate WP:N), but it is also necessary to address WP:NOTGUIDE concerns raised by others (including nom). Ipsign (talk) 13:25, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The same kind of sources presented above can be found for very many places - try, for example, this search. Presented in isolation the list above misleadingly suggests adequate coverage, but the bigger picture is that the coverage is entirely run of the mill. Whilst there may be a notable sub-topic of Public toilets to cover here, there is nothing to indicate notability of Bratislava in particular. RichardOSmith (talk) 07:58, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Richard. Removing the unsourced travel guide list we are left with a short history section that might be notable enough to get a mention in the Bratislava article at a pinch, but is not enough for it's own article. AIRcorn (talk) 05:04, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or merge with an article on Bratislava sanitation or public facilities that would include other similar content.--Avala (talk) 13:05, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep  Northamerica1000 has shown that the topic passes WP:GNG.  I have added material, inline citations, [citation needed], and [original research?] tags to the article.  I have removed some WP:NOTTRAVEL content including prices.  I have removed some material that appears to have been WP:OR.  I have not removed any of the locations in the list, but the mere presence of content that could theoretically be used by tourists does not mean that the article as a whole qualifies for a WP:NOTTRAVEL deletion.  According to a source, the tourist industry is not happy about the toilet situation.  IMO, this is a fresh and practical article about a real-world topic, with pictures of the turf of the "legendary" hajzelbaba.  The first edit has an edit comment,"For the benefit of the thousands of visitors to Braitslava for the 2011 IIHF World Championships and for the enlightment of future generations".  We are now in the phase of this article being enlightenment for future generations.  Unscintillating (talk) 03:09, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete per WP:NOTGUIDE (which overrides all WP:N considerations according to WP:N itself: "A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below, and is not excluded under What Wikipedia is not.". Ipsign (talk) 13:28, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
With a goal of eliminating any possible source for the position that WP:NOT is applicable for this article, I have elided nine of the entries on the list.  I have also recharacterized the list as a partial list.  Do you agree that WP:NOT is not now applicable?  If not, specifically what is still objectionable?  Unscintillating (talk) 20:18, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment As I see it, it is still in direct violation of WP:NOTTRAVEL, which explicitly says:"An article on Paris should mention landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, but not the telephone number or street address of your favorite hotel, nor the current price of a café au lait on the Champs-Élysées. Wikipedia is not the place to recreate content more suited to entries in hotel or culinary guides, travelogues, and the like. Notable locations may meet the inclusion criteria, but the resulting articles need not include every tourist attraction, restaurant, hotel or venue, etc. Such details may be welcome at Wikitravel or Wikia travel instead.". Ipsign (talk) 15:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein  08:17, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I think the GNG and NOTTRAVEL will be met if the following sentence in the article is indeed true: "Under communism, the tradition of public toilets formed, which influences the city to this day." The single source addressing this issue does, in my opinion, not suffice. If public toilets indeed influence the culture or other elements of Bratislava than, indeed, we can imagine a reader wanting to read the article. As of yet, I don't, though. Maybe the author could expand on why the toilets are indeed influental? Jhschreurs (talk) 09:11, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Notability is not a matter of argument; it's a matter of sources. The article has perfectly good sources which testify to there being some interest in the question of whether Bratislava has adequate provision of such facilities. Warden (talk) 00:01, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • We have inclusion thresholds for good reason; equating them with censorship is a bit of a stretch. You are indeed right that the search results I cited may indicate a notable sub-topic of Public toilet but our task here is not to debate that, but whether there is anything exceptional, and therefore notable, about the ones specifically in Bratislava. There is not; the issues are common-place, the subject is mundane and run-of-the-mill; it is not notable. RichardOSmith (talk) 13:42, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Yes, public toilets exist. Yes, public toilets in state/town/city/region exist. I'm sure there are travel guides, directories and the occasional "state of public restrooms" news piece that make note of such locations. However, we're neither a travel guide not directory, which is all this article is. I really hope that someday the ARS will stop embarrassing the project with drivel like this. Tarc (talk) 14:44, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Objection - WP:OTHERSTUFF is an inherently invalid argument. Ipsign (talk) 10:32, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not keen on railway station directory articles either, and for the same reasons. Mangoe (talk) 17:38, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
（╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ Being hyper-literary should be a blockable offense. Yet, I will try to accommodate your lack of trying to hear my point by changing my statement to this: Every reason possible for keeping Statues in Dublin and Railway stations in the Netherlands are applicable here as well. 99.235.194.16 (talk) 02:43, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Which is exactly WP:OTHERSTUFF and therefore is not a valid argument. It may happen that those 2 articles don't belong to Wikipedia either, but now we're discussing Public restrooms in Bratislava; as for 2 other articles - feel free to start separate AfDs on them. Ipsign (talk) 06:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"When used properly, a logical rationalization of "Other Stuff Exists" may be used in a perfectly valid manner in discussions of what articles to create, delete, or retain.". I'm guessing you assumed the content? My argument stands as valid as the only difference between the two articles and this one is the subject is crass. Back to the actual argument rather then this tiff, List of bus routes in Queens and Parks in Dubuque, Iowa are again quite similar to this article, and like this article they have information someone may one day seek. There are references on the subject, then as a reference work, wikipedia should contain information on the subject. 99.235.194.16 (talk) 06:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Your interpretation of WP:OTHERSTUFF and WP:OSE, unfortunately, differs from the one widely accepted in Wikipedia community. Ipsign (talk) 06:40, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
ლ(ಠ益ಠ)ლ Y U NO THINK? 99.235.194.16 (talk) 07:02, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ipsign, I don't agree that being often misrepresented means that the misrepresentation is widely accepted.  The essay speaks for itself on what it says.  Unscintillating (talk) 07:36, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I myself am happy to be a snob about it. Public bathrooms is where I draw the line is way over where I draw the line. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 22:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: just because Unscintillating and Northamerica found some references on the 'net doesn't mean we have to have an article. Even if this passes NOTE, it fails both NOTDIRECTORY and COMMONSENSE Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 05:33, 12 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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